A hoard of coins excavated in the eighteenth century, once thought to be fakes have been authenticated by researchers who say the coins reveal a long-lost Roman Emperor. Sponsianus, also known as Sponsian, may have been a Roman usurper during the third century. Although there is no mention of Sponsian in present day Roman history, he might have been active during the Crisis of the Third Century, most likely in the province of Dacia. He could have proclaimed himself emperor in the 260's AD, after Darcia was cut off the rest of the Empire during the reign of Gallienus, or during the reign of Philip the Arab or his son, Philip II.
Sponsianus's name was reportedly uncovered in a coin hoard in Transylvania in 1713 AD. The coins were dispersed among several collections. One coin was kept in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University, which also had three other coins from the original hoard. The hoard included other coins of Philip the Arab and Gordian III, among others. The coin was locked away in a cupboard at the Hunterian Museum because it was thought to be a fake.
The traditional opinion has been to regard the coins as fakes. In 1868, the French numismatist Henry Cohen dismissed them as ''very poor-quality modern forgeries''. After a study in 2022, led by Paul Pearson of the University College London, an earth scientist, Cardiff University, who learned about the coins and the ''fake emperor'' while researching a book on Roman history as a lockdown project. He began corresponding with Jesper Ericsson, the numismatics curator at the museum and the pair decided to perform a full-scale scientific analysis on the coin. The group of scientists stated that the marks on the coin bearing Sponsianus's name and image, visible under an electron microscope, proved that it circulated in antiquity and had been used.
A chemical analysis of the earth deposits found in the coin recesses showed that the coin had been buried in soil for hundreds of years. Moreover, simply based on their weight in gold, the coins are around $20,000 in modern value, which would have been a big outlay to start a forgery. However, there has been several researchers who have criticized the study and its conclusions and stated that unless further studies can provide more answers these coins be treated as fakes.
The most likely theory or explanation states that he was a military commander who crowned himself as an emperor when Dacia was cut off from the rest of the empire around 260 AD, as with the ongoing pandemic and civil war the empire was fragmented. Darcia was abandoned by Emperor Aurelian of the Roman Empire in the 260's as it was deemed too difficult to defend. Sponsianus may have taken the title of emperor as an attempt to maintain order. However, the Romans eventually evacuated Darcia between 271 and 275 AD.
The Sponsian coins are ''extremely rare'' with only four known to exist and were probably minted in the isolated province of Dacia, perhaps in the city of Apulum, by jewellery artisans as the area did not have a regular coin mint. The research is in public domain, including more than 100 pages of technical reports from the scientific team.
The debate about the coins being fake or genuine is likely to continue before reaching a consensus and a conclusion
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